This is The Author's Voice, New Fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treasman, Fiction Editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Author's Voice, we'll hear Sarah Shunleianne Bynum, read her story, The Burglar, from the April 11th, 2016 issue of the magazine.

Beinam is the author of two novels, Madeline is Sleeping and Ms. Hempel Chronicles.

She's been publishing fiction in The New Yorker since 2008.

Now here's Sarah Shunyan Beinam.

The Burglar He watches the second car back out of the driveway, and then he makes a slow lap around the block,

careful not to step on the cracks in the sidewalk.

From other houses come the sounds of dogs barking, and from other yards the

noise of lawnmowers and leaf blowers. Construction is happening somewhere down the street.

After completing the lap, he looks up at the clock on top of the Catholic Church the next

block over, 940.

He walks up the driveway purposefully and pushes through the white wooden gate.

A high gate that he noticed yesterday doesn't have a lock.

Echola, Orkin.

Idling at the intersection, she can't remember for a moment the name of the company she is on her way home to meet.

In the past week, three men came through the house, one after the other, wearing jumpsuits and slipping disposable booties over their shoes,

three men on their hands and knees in the attic, creaking overhead, tapping inquisitively at the beams. After collecting all the estimates she consulted with her husband,

who had only this to say, trust your gut. Oh, Greenleaf, that's the name. They cost the most,

but she liked the man and according to the

literature, they use 100% organic materials. The husband is late to work. As the elevator carries

him up to the offices, he is thinking about Emmett Byron Diggs, Attica inmate No. 243.

...